Alex Gilvarry was born in Staten Island, New York. He is the author of From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant, winner of the Hornblower Award for First Fiction (New York Society Library), Best New Voice 2012 by Bookspan, and selected by the New York Times as an Editor’s Choice. He was named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 nominee in 2014 and has received fellowships from the Harry Ransom Center and the Normal Mailer Center. His second novel, Eastman Was Here, published in 2017, was nominated for the PEN Open Book Award and chosen as one of the best books of the year by Esquire magazine. His essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Boston Globe, Lithub, and have been broadcast on NPR’s All Things Considered.